Why I Chose The Body Coach

Well look at me getting all productive and posting 2 blog posts in one week. Quite the accomplishment! And, before you ask, yes, I am out of my PJs and I am writing this at 10:30am so GO ME!

Anyway, enough of the self-congratulation, let’s get down to blogging business. So, as I mentioned in Monday’s post, I have signed up for The Body Coach 90 Day Plan and started it on Monday. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my Instagram Stories where I have been sharing the food I’ve been enjoying to date which, I have to say, has been beaut! I am a massive food lover so this pleases me immensely! But what I wanted to write about is why I have chosen to do the Body Coach plan in the first place.

History

I am a massive foodie. I LOVE food – the good, the bad and the ugly! But I also have a real desire to be healthy and nourish my body correctly as I understand the power the right nutrition can have both physically and mentally. And my interest in nutrition and eating well first started when I was undergoing fertility treatment. When my body wasn’t doing what it should – i.e. getting pregnant naturally – my attention to how I was treating my body upped a gear, even down to the chemicals I was putting on my skin. Believe me, you try EVERYTHING when you’re on the infertility merry-go-round, even natural deodorant, but that’s another story! Now I’d always considered myself to be fairly healthy, in particular I have exercised my whole life in one way or another, but I never really took much notice of what my body needed when it came to food, rather I just knew green stuff was good for you and beige stuff generally not so good. So it wasn’t until I was injecting myself daily with all sorts of fertility hormone chemicals & steroids, willing my body to respond and work for me, that I really began to take a much keener interest and truly started understanding the role food can play in our health. And through Crossfit, I was introduced to the Paleo way of eating. Paleo is basically a fancy term for a hunter/gatherer type of diet, eliminating processed food and the bad sugars. You will notice I don’t use the definition “clean eating” which is often used in relation to Paleo. This is because I hate this term with a passion. It attaches guilt to food, something that we should be avoiding at all costs in my opinion. If I want to have a chocolate bar every once in a while, then I will and I will blummin’ well enjoy it, thank you very much. What Paleo did for me was it taught me what a balanced meal looks like – what components every meal required – and what was what when it came to protein, carbohydrates and fats. So I went about a 30 day Paleo “challenge” where I only ate within the rules. And boy did I feel great. I have never felt so energised – Mr W will vouch for it as I don’t think he could quite believe his eyes! My sleep quality was amazing (never realised it hadn’t been until this point), my head felt clearer and I generally felt like I was firing on all cylinders. It was a proper revelation. So I was absolutely converted and ever since then I’ve tried to stick to the rules of Paleo whenever possible. And when I was at work every day, in a routine, I managed it most of the time. However, when I reduced my hours to 4 days a week, I became lazy with my food preparation and choices – I guess I’d got bored of the routine food I’d become accustomed to eating – and knew that I needed to get back in to good habits when I was working from home as I’d started to feel constantly lethargic. My lunches on my non-working days had started to get very beige and very low on nutritional value – a slippery slope. Cue The Body Coach and his Black Friday deal!

Why The Body Coach?

So, why did I chose The Body Coach and not just commit back to the Paleo way of life again?

Inspiration

I guess I’d got a bit bored and uninspired with what I had been eating and having followed The Body Coach on Instagram and Facebook for a while, seeing the recipes not only looked delicious, but seemed very similar to Paleo too, it gave me confidence regards the nutritional value.

Structure

What I felt I really needed, and what The Body Coach plan would give me, was a structure to follow given my days were going to be very much unstructured as I found my feet being self-employed.

Sustainable

What I also like about The Body Coach plan, and what I like about Paleo, is that is it sustainable. It’s not a quick fix diet and I’m in it for the long haul!

So I signed up!

It’s not about Weight!!

I want to be very clear that I did not sign up to lose weight. I signed up to create a healthy and balanced diet which is really important to me as I embark on growing Sally Dreams – I need the clearest of heads, top notch energy levels, and the best sleep possible to really succeed. I repeat : it has nothing to do with my weight. And that was another draw to The Body Coach as, like me, he cannot stand the sad step i.e. the dreaded bathroom scales. And it’s something I feel very strongly and passionate about. Since putting my body through the chemical shit storm that is IVF/ICSI, I appreciate it more than ever and my main goal in life is to look after it and nourish it in the best way possible. We only get one after all! So I don’t want to deprive it to achieve a number on a set of scales. Because how do you even know what that number should be anyway? Who decides? Nothing makes me sadder than a beautiful woman berating herself because the number on the sad step isn’t what she thinks it should be. Soooooooo many things effect a woman’s weight on any given day so to use it as a barometer to how you feel about yourself is fruitless and, quite frankly, depressing! Obviously I’m no expert – this is just my humble opinion – but if you’re eating a healthy, balanced, nutritious diet and exercising regularly, the rest takes care of itself, so who blummin’ cares what the scales say! And I think Joe Wicks has found a great formula to achieve this without having to spend hours in the gym or at the stove. So win, win if neither of those float your boat!

In summary

I think you’ve probably got the message – for me, personally, signing up to The Body Coach is all about achieving a heathy balance between my food and my exercise. To provide structure to my day as I establish my new routines. I never want to deprive myself of the things I enjoy and food is very much one of them. So I won’t be totally ditching the Dairy Milk any time soon. I’ll just be having it after my Loaded Spinach and Feta frittata 😉

Please note, this is not an advert, I am not getting paid – all opinions are my own. Although if you are reading this, Joe……. 😉